Virulence gene profiling of porcine isolates of Assam.

AIM

The present study was conducted to detect and identify the virulence genes in isolates of porcine origin from Assam.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

A total of 21 porcine isolates were subjected to capsular typing and detection of virulence-associated genes (, and ) using various polymerase chain reaction (PCR) methods reported elsewhere. Further, pathogenicity of the porcine isolates of was studied in mice. For each strain of selected for pathogenicity trial, the group of mice was injected intraperitoneally (i/p) with 0.1 ml of the inoculum prepared from respective field isolates, containing 10 organisms per ml.

RESULTS

Capsular typing of the isolates by multiplex PCR showed two capsular types, type A (66.66%) and type D (33.33%). All the isolates were positive for outer membrane protein genes, and genes. Iron acquisition genes, and , were detected in 14.28% and 19.04% of the isolates. The dermonecrotoxin encoding gene, , was present in 23.80% of the isolates. Filamentous hemagglutinin encoding gene, , was detected in 28.57%. The virulence gene distribution pattern of the isolates indicates the important role of the genes in disease pathogenesis.

CONCLUSION

From the present study, it can be concluded that gene is an important marker gene for defining the pathogenic potential of strains in swine.